There are more laughs on a Thursday night than the rest of the week put together. The Brittas Empire (BBC1) is not for the discerning, but Drop the Dead Donkey (C4) is; in between, there is the excellent Joking Apart (BBC2), with Robert Bathurst turning in a splendidly tart performance as a bemused divorcee.
Last night’s episode was a typically slick chapter of accidents in which messages left on an answerphone gave rise to wild misunderstandings and frantic plotting and counter-plotting. The deceptively fluent plot is the perfect vehicle for the brittle emotional lives of the characters; and the result is a satire on man-woman relationships, sharp without being verbose.